Course Calendar Readings can be found in your Norton Anthology textbook unless otherwise indicated.
Tuesday, January 24: First class day Introductions Syllabus Introduction to American Literature Blackboard
Log in, update your email address, and familiarize yourself with the site.
Tuesday, January 31: Pilgrims & Puritans William Bradford p. 57-8 Bradford from Of Plymouth Plantation: Chapter 9—The Voyage p. 58-61 Anne Bradstreet p. 97 “Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666” p. 109-10 Cotton Mather p. 143-4 Cotton Mather & the Salem Witch TrialsSalem Witch Musuem from The Wonders of the Invisible World p. 144-9 Jonathan Edwards p. 168-70 Dom-He went from being top dog, to a little poodle. Personal Narrative p. 170-5 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God p. 194-205
Tuesday, February 7: The Enlightenment Thomas Jefferson Notes on the State of Virginia “From Query XVII. Religion?” (handout) An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in the State of Virginia (handout) Ralph Waldo Emerson p. 488-92 Self-Reliancep. 532-50 http://www.transcendentalists.com/self_reliance_analysis.htm
“I felt a Funeral in my Brain” p. 1207 “Because I could not stop for Death” p. 1214-5 “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – “ p. 1215 “Much Madness is divinest Sense” p. 1216 “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” p. 1221
First Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, February 21: Realism Mark Twain p. 1270-3 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter XXXIV to end p. 1426-63 Theodore Dreiser p. 1756-7 “True Art Speaks Plainly” p. 1757-8 Earnest Hemingway p. 2241-3 “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” p. 2243-59
Tuesday, February 28: Naturalism Theodore Dreiser p. 1761-3 from Sister Carrie p. 1763-1777 Stephen Crane p. 1777-9 “The Open Boat” p. 1779-95 Jack London p. 1825-6 “To Build a Fire” p. 1826-36 Second Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, March 6: Regionalism Willa Cather p. 1901-3 “A Wagner Matinee” (handout) Kate Chopin p. 1602-4 “At the ‘Cadian Ball” p. 1604-11 “The Storm” p. 1611-5 Robert Frost p. 1951-2 “The Pasture” p. 1952 “Mending Wall” p. 1953-4 “The Death of the Hired Man” p. 1954-8 “Birches” p. 1961-2 “Two Tramps in Mud Time” (handout) William Faulkner p. 2216-8 “Pantaloon in Black” (handout) Katherine Anne Porter p. 2147-8 “Flowering Judas” p. 2149-57 Zora Neale Hurston p. 2157-8 “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” p. 2158-61 First Annotated Review due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, March 13: SPRING BREAK
Tuesday, March 20: Modernism T.S. Eliot p. 2037-9 “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” p. 2039-42 “The Hollow Men” p. 2057-60 Ezra Pound p. 2018-9 “To Whistler, American” p. 2020 “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” p. 2022 From The Cantos p. 2023-4 Hilda Doolittle (H. D.) p. 2025-6 “Mid-day” p. 2026-7 “Oread” p. 2027 “Helen” p. 2029-30 e.e. cummings p. 2172-3 “Buffalo Bill’s” p. 2175 “next to of course god America i” p. 2176 “i sing of Olaf glad and big” p. 2176-7 Theodore Roethke p. 2319-20 “My Papa’s Waltz” p. 2321 “Dolor” p. 2321 “I Knew a Woman” p. 2323 William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, Chapter One: “April Seventh, 1928” (handout) Third Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, March 27: Modern Drama Tennessee Williams p. 2334-6 A Streetcar Named Desire p. 2337-98
Tuesday, April 3: Beats & Other Contemporary Poets Jack Kerouac p. 2542-3 from Big Sur p. 2543-51 Allen Ginsberg p. 2590-2 “Howl” p. 2592-2600 “Footnote to Howl” p. 2600 “A Supermarket in California” p. 2601 Galway Kinnell p. 2602 from The Book of Nightmares (handout) “Under the Maud Moon” “The Hen Flower” “The Dead Shall Be Raised Incorruptible” James Wright p. 2611-3 “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” p. 2613 “Saint Judas” (handout) Philip Levine, “What Work Is” (handout) B. H. Fairchild, from The Art of the Lathe “Beauty” & “Body and Soul” (handout) Sylvia Plath p. 2651-3 “Daddy” p. 2656-8 “The Colossus” & “The Mood and the Yew Tree” (handout) Fourth Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, April 10: Women Anne Bradstreet “The Prologue” p. 98-9 “The Author to Her Book” p. 106-7 Thomas Paine An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex (handout) Margaret Fuller p. 736-9 from The Great Lawsuit p. 739-47 Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I A Woman?” (handout) Charlotte Perkins Gilman p. 1682-3 The Yellow Wall-Paper p. 1684-95 Maxine Hong Kingston p. 2743-4 No Name Woman p. 2744-53 Inez Holland “The Changing Home” (handout) Joan Morgan “The F-Word” (handout) Mitsuye Yamada “To the Lady” (handout) Anne Sexton p. 2614-5 “Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman” p. 2617-9
Tuesday, April 17: Early African American Olaudah Equiano p. 355-6 from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano…, Chapter IV & V p. 370-8 Frederick Douglass p. 920-3 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, Chapters I-IV p. 931-42 Booker T. Washington p. 1628-30 from Up from Slavery p. 1630-8 W.E.B. Du Bois p. 1727-9 from The Souls of Black Folk p. 1729-44 Fifth Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, April 24: Modern African American Langston Hughes p. 2263-5 “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” p. 2265 “Mother to Son” p. 2265 “I, Too” p. 2266 “Mulatto” p. 2267-8 Ida B. Wells-Barnett “This Awful Slaughter” (handout) Billie Holiday “Strange Fruit” (handout) Sterling Brown “He Was a Man” (handout) Ted Joans “Jazz is My Religion” (handout) Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream” (handout) Nicole Breedlove “The New Miz Praise De Lawd” (handout) Second Annotated Review due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, May 1: Native American The Iroquois Creation Story p. 17-21 Pima Stories of the Beginning of the World p. 21-24 Benjamin Franklin p. 218-20 “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” p. 226-30 Sitting Bull “The life my people want…” (handout) Clyde Warrior “We are poor in spirit…” (handout) Sherman Alexie p. 2851-2 “Do Not Go Gentle” p. 2854-7 from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, “Imagining the Reservation” (handout) Joy Harjo, “Finding the Groove” (handout) Final Exam Review
Spring 2012 - Mullinax
Course Calendar
Readings can be found in your Norton Anthology textbook unless otherwise indicated.
Tuesday, January 24:
First class day
Introductions
Syllabus
Introduction to American Literature
Blackboard
Log in, update your email address, and familiarize yourself with the site.
Tuesday, January 31: Pilgrims & Puritans
William Bradford p. 57-8 Bradford
from Of Plymouth Plantation: Chapter 9—The Voyage p. 58-61
Anne Bradstreet p. 97
“Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666” p. 109-10
Cotton Mather p. 143-4 Cotton Mather & the Salem Witch Trials Salem Witch Musuem
from The Wonders of the Invisible World p. 144-9
Jonathan Edwards p. 168-70 Dom-He went from being top dog, to a little poodle.
Personal Narrative p. 170-5
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God p. 194-205
Tuesday, February 7: The Enlightenment
Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia “From Query XVII. Religion?” (handout)
An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in the State of Virginia (handout)
Ralph Waldo Emerson p. 488-92
Self-Reliancep. 532-50
http://www.transcendentalists.com/self_reliance_analysis.htm
Walt Whitman p. 991-5
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/whitman/section2.rhtml
Song of Myself starting on page 1011, read 1, 5, 6, 22, 24, 31, & 52. I know that Emerson and WHitman are wordy. But get through them and Dickinson is better. Promise.
Emily Dickinson p. 1197-1200
“There’s a certain Slant of light” p. 1205
http://www.enotes.com/theres-certain-slant-light-salem/theres-certain-slant-light
“I felt a Funeral in my Brain” p. 1207
“Because I could not stop for Death” p. 1214-5
“I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – “ p. 1215
“Much Madness is divinest Sense” p. 1216
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant” p. 1221
Tuesday, February 14: Romanticism
Washington Irving p. 453-5
Rip Van Winkle p. 455-66
Nathaniel Hawthorne p. 589-92
“Young Goodman Brown” p. 605-14
http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/young-goodman-brown/summary.html
Please remember that to Quakers, witches were devil worshipers. This is important to understanding this story.
Edgar Allan Poe p. 671-4
“The Fall of the House of Usher” p. 689-701
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section3.rhtml
First Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, February 21: Realism
Mark Twain p. 1270-3
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter XXXIV to end p. 1426-63
Theodore Dreiser p. 1756-7
“True Art Speaks Plainly” p. 1757-8
Earnest Hemingway p. 2241-3
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” p. 2243-59
Tuesday, February 28: Naturalism
Theodore Dreiser p. 1761-3
from Sister Carrie p. 1763-1777
Stephen Crane p. 1777-9
“The Open Boat” p. 1779-95
Jack London p. 1825-6
“To Build a Fire” p. 1826-36
Second Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, March 6: Regionalism
Willa Cather p. 1901-3
“A Wagner Matinee” (handout)
Kate Chopin p. 1602-4
“At the ‘Cadian Ball” p. 1604-11
“The Storm” p. 1611-5
Robert Frost p. 1951-2
“The Pasture” p. 1952
“Mending Wall” p. 1953-4
“The Death of the Hired Man” p. 1954-8
“Birches” p. 1961-2
“Two Tramps in Mud Time” (handout)
William Faulkner p. 2216-8
“Pantaloon in Black” (handout)
Katherine Anne Porter p. 2147-8
“Flowering Judas” p. 2149-57
Zora Neale Hurston p. 2157-8
“How It Feels to Be Colored Me” p. 2158-61
First Annotated Review due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, March 13:
SPRING BREAK
Tuesday, March 20: Modernism
T.S. Eliot p. 2037-9
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” p. 2039-42
“The Hollow Men” p. 2057-60
Ezra Pound p. 2018-9
“To Whistler, American” p. 2020
“The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” p. 2022
From The Cantos p. 2023-4
Hilda Doolittle (H. D.) p. 2025-6
“Mid-day” p. 2026-7
“Oread” p. 2027
“Helen” p. 2029-30
e.e. cummings p. 2172-3
“Buffalo Bill’s” p. 2175
“next to of course god America i” p. 2176
“i sing of Olaf glad and big” p. 2176-7
Theodore Roethke p. 2319-20
“My Papa’s Waltz” p. 2321
“Dolor” p. 2321
“I Knew a Woman” p. 2323
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, Chapter One: “April Seventh, 1928” (handout)
Third Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, March 27: Modern Drama
Tennessee Williams p. 2334-6
A Streetcar Named Desire p. 2337-98
Tuesday, April 3: Beats & Other Contemporary Poets
Jack Kerouac p. 2542-3
from Big Sur p. 2543-51
Allen Ginsberg p. 2590-2
“Howl” p. 2592-2600
“Footnote to Howl” p. 2600
“A Supermarket in California” p. 2601
Galway Kinnell p. 2602
from The Book of Nightmares (handout)
“Under the Maud Moon”
“The Hen Flower”
“The Dead Shall Be Raised Incorruptible”
James Wright p. 2611-3
“Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio” p. 2613
“Saint Judas” (handout)
Philip Levine, “What Work Is” (handout)
B. H. Fairchild, from The Art of the Lathe “Beauty” & “Body and Soul” (handout)
Sylvia Plath p. 2651-3
“Daddy” p. 2656-8
“The Colossus” & “The Mood and the Yew Tree” (handout)
Fourth Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, April 10: Women
Anne Bradstreet
“The Prologue” p. 98-9
“The Author to Her Book” p. 106-7
Thomas Paine An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex (handout)
Margaret Fuller p. 736-9
from The Great Lawsuit p. 739-47
Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I A Woman?” (handout)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman p. 1682-3
The Yellow Wall-Paper p. 1684-95
Maxine Hong Kingston p. 2743-4
No Name Woman p. 2744-53
Inez Holland “The Changing Home” (handout)
Joan Morgan “The F-Word” (handout)
Mitsuye Yamada “To the Lady” (handout)
Anne Sexton p. 2614-5
“Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman” p. 2617-9
Tuesday, April 17: Early African American
Olaudah Equiano p. 355-6
from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano…, Chapter IV & V p. 370-8
Frederick Douglass p. 920-3
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, Chapters I-IV p. 931-42
Booker T. Washington p. 1628-30
from Up from Slavery p. 1630-8
W.E.B. Du Bois p. 1727-9
from The Souls of Black Folk p. 1729-44
Fifth Essay Exam due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, April 24: Modern African American
Langston Hughes p. 2263-5
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” p. 2265
“Mother to Son” p. 2265
“I, Too” p. 2266
“Mulatto” p. 2267-8
Ida B. Wells-Barnett “This Awful Slaughter” (handout)
Billie Holiday “Strange Fruit” (handout)
Sterling Brown “He Was a Man” (handout)
Ted Joans “Jazz is My Religion” (handout)
Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream” (handout)
Nicole Breedlove “The New Miz Praise De Lawd” (handout)
Second Annotated Review due via upload to Blackboard by 11:59pm.
Tuesday, May 1: Native American
The Iroquois Creation Story p. 17-21
Pima Stories of the Beginning of the World p. 21-24
Benjamin Franklin p. 218-20
“Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” p. 226-30
Sitting Bull “The life my people want…” (handout)
Clyde Warrior “We are poor in spirit…” (handout)
Sherman Alexie p. 2851-2
“Do Not Go Gentle” p. 2854-7
from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, “Imagining the Reservation” (handout)
Joy Harjo, “Finding the Groove” (handout)
Final Exam Review
Final Exam: Tuesday, May 8th from 7:45pm-9:45pm.